Assistant DA announces plans to run for judge's seat

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Nevada County Assistant District Attorney Anna Ferguson announced Tuesday that she intends to run for the Superior Court Judge position being vacated by Sean Dowling’s retirement.

“It was an unexpected opportunity,” Ferguson said. “It had not been in my mind (prior to Dowling’s announcement he would retire), but I gave it some thought … I realized this is something I could really do. I do have a lot of local support.”

Ferguson has served in the No. 2 slot in the District Attorney’s office for seven years, coming to Nevada County from Kings County.

After earning her undergraduate degree in English from UC Santa Barbara with high honors, she graduated cum laude from Pepperdine University School of Law in 1993 and passed the bar exam later that same year.

Her subsequent legal experience has included positions as associate attorney for a civil insurance defense firm in Long Beach, deputy public defender for Tulare County, Special Assistant Inspector General for the state of California Inspector General’s Office Bureau of Independent Review, auditing prison internal affairs cases, and deputy district attorney for Kings County.

Over the course of her 20 year career, Ferguson has taken more than 100 cases to jury trial, she said, working on complex cases, including homicides, domestic violence, kidnappings and officer-involved shootings.

Locally, she successfully prosecuted murderers Steven Medlyn in 2008 and Louis James in 2010.

“I did the James murder case in front of (Judge Dowling),” Ferguson said. “That was huge. He certainly made me have a tremendous amount of respect for him during that trial. It was an awful set of facts and a lot of complicated legal issues.”

Ferguson said the decision to run for the judicial seat was not one she made lightly, adding, “I love what I do now.”

She said she was not worried about the impact of her potential departure from the District Attorney’s Office, saying, “I have every confidence the people we are training will step up and fill in for anybody leaving to keep the continuity of service here high. We’ve got some really great people.”

Ferguson said her message to the voting public is simple.

“Every job I’ve had, from babysitting as a teenager to working in a restaurant … every job I’ve had, I’ve tried to do a good job,” she said. “I’m hardworking, and I’ve always tried to be fair. That’s all I can assure the public — I’m always dedicated to doing what I think is right. I don’t know what more I can promise.”

Ferguson has strong local ties, she said, as her parents live locally and her grandmother attended school here — and her fiancé is a Nevada County Sheriff’s deputy. She currently serves on the Nevada County Law Library Board of Trustees.

She has also been formally endorsed for candidacy by the California Fish and Game Wardens’ Association.